Bette Bunker Richards posted this on the Bunker e-mail group at Rootsweb:

Since I have just updated to the latest version of The Master Genealogist, the family tree software that the BFA uses, I looked at how many names we now have in the various databases.  All together we have just under 95,000 names. Many of these are duplicates and also several people have more than one name but even if 50% of them fit in that catagory, we have about 50,000 people now listed in the BFA databases.  Every day I add more and actually have two stacks, each about 1 foot high, of papers with information on them that need to be input.  There are several separate databases so that it takes less time to search for someone.  Our largest database is the one with the descendants of James Bunker of New Hampshire and those related to him through DNA tests.  Well, actually, the old database is bigger but it has so many duplicates in it that it is harder to search and I usually use it only as a last resort.

If someone sends me a query, I can usually determine whether we have informaton about that person in just a few minutes as long as I am given any information to go along with the name.  For instance, trying to find a specific William Bunker is impossible but if I am told he married Sarah Johnson and lived about 1850, I can find him or eliminate fairly fast.  Once I receive a query and either find the person in the database or determine that he/she cannot be found, I update that particular file as much as I can by using census records, information from the person making the inquiry, and all kinds of internet sites.  I usually have all the information I can easily find within an hour or so.

The BFA will supply a free pedigree for anyone located in our files.  All we ask in exchange is that you send us information about your family so we can update the files.

The 1940 census records are coming out soon with the indexes so they can easily be searched by name.  This will add a lot of information to our database if I can just find the time to get it done.  I believe we have all the Bunkers listed in the US 1880 census now in the database.  1880 was the first year that all the household members were listed instead of just the head of household.  The 1900 census gave birth months and years and I have tried to get all those records in but I still keep finding new ones so I have a way to go on those.

Bette

Thanks to our society’s association with FGS, RootsTech is extending a very attractive discounted rate of $99 for three days only to any members of our society who would like to participate in this one-of-a-kind, dynamicconference in Salt Lake City, Utah.  

RootsTech is a leading edge conference designed to bring technologists together with genealogists, so they can learn from each other and find solutions to the challenges they face in family history research today. More than 3,000 people attended the inaugural conference in 2011 and their feedback on RootsTech was overwhelmingly positive. Don’t miss out in 2012!

Take advantage of the special $99 registration rate and we look forward to seeing you at RootsTech 2012!

Bunker Family Association Secretary Shirley Bunker Howell is planning next year’s 99th BFA Reunion, to be held in Salt Lake City, Utah, June 13-17, 2012. Shirley made a report on reunion plans to the BFA at its annual meeting in Philadelphia, and published in the association’s newsletter (the Bunker Banner) earlier this month.

Utah and the West have large populations of Bunkers, mostly descended from Edward Bunker (D-185) born 1822, Atkinson, Maine. Seeking his fortune near the Great Lakes, Edward converted to Mormonism in 1845. He spent 1846 and 1847 as part of Gen. Stephen Kearny’s Army of the West in the Mexican War. His infantry unit marched from Ft. Leavenworth to Santa Fe then to San Diego. In 1850 he settled in Utah and helped found several towns. In 1850 during his return from missionary service in England and Scotland, he was Captain of the now-famous Mormon handcart companies. He founded the Town of Bunkerville, Nevada (near today’s Mesquite), that was named after him.

During our reunion next year, time will be allocated in downtown Salt Lake City for visiting the LDS History Center, the “world’s leading genealogy library.” Tours of Temple Square and the Beehive house, home of Brigham Young’s polygamous families’ are planned. We can observe a spectacular view of the city atop the 26^th floor of the LDS Church Office building if time allows. A rehearsal of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is a must-see event; the acoustics within the Tabernacle are astounding. An optional half-hour live radio broadcast on Sunday is planned.

A bus tour will take us to the shore of the Great Salt Lake. We will hear about its history of breaking land speed records on the “flats” and learn how the salt is mined from catch basins. We’ll continue on to Kennecott and the world’s largest open pit copper mine (it’s visible from outer space); even the size of the dump-trucks’ tires will astonish you. From the deepest pit, we’ll climb aboard a tram for breathtaking views as we ascend the towering Wasatch Mountain with its premier ski-resort of Snowbird. You could say we’ll experience the reunion’s high point and low point in one day.

If you like dinosaurs, Utah claims to have discovered the most. Another tour will take us to the University of Utah and its brand new Rio-Tinto Kennecott Utah Museum of Natural History to see the skeletal remains and exhibits of these pre-historic beasts. We’ll bid ado to T’rex and his friends for a leisurely stroll through the magnificent Red Butte Gardens.

Saturday evening’s Bunker History Program will be held at the downtown 8^th Ward Chapel and will include several speakers. We’ll learn about Edward Bunker’s participation in the Mexican War. Among his numerous progeny is Sharlene Wells Hawkes, 1985 Miss America, who will be a guest speaker and present a vocal solo. Can’t get much better that that!

Negotiations for a downtown hotel are not final; there may also be changes in the above listed itinerar.  This, however, will give you a general idea of what is planned for the 99^th annual reunion.

If you are a BFA member living in Utah and would like to help in the reunion planning, please contact Shirley (e-mail: howellrash@comcast.net).

This is an annual report on the Bunker Family Association’s web site and e-mail activities. Our e-mail group at Rootsweb.com remains active with 163 subscribers; not all of whom are members of the BFA.  Bette Bunker Richards, our genealogist, is the most active contributor to the group.  She often shares links to sites on the internet containing information useful to those researching our family history.

Anyone wishing to subscribe to the list may send an e-mail request to BUNKER-L-request@rootsweb.com with the word “subscribe” in the subject line.  Alternatively, some folks prefer to allow the list manager (that’s me) to manually subscribe them.  You can send me at an e-mail request at doug.detling@gmail.com and I’ll add you.

Our web site at https://www.bunkerfamilyassn.org is hosted at a large commercial hosting company, and we have obtained certain economies of scale since I manage other web sites. Costs of maintaining the site are stable, though this year there was a dollar increase in the domain registration. We’ve managed to keep the costs at $110 a year with no web data traffic charges.  Web site maintenance has been made more efficient through the newest versions of WordPress—one of the most popular blogging software packages used on the internet today.

As another contribution to the association, we have been able to post photographs of interest to BFA members, such as the restoration of the Bunker graveyard in New Hampshire. The photos are accessible through the webmaster’s photo site at http://greencity.phanfare.com.

Another activity of the web master is the production of the CDs Bette Bunker Richards has created on the Bedford and Devon Bunker families.  As needed, these discs are producing using masters kept on file on the webmaster’s computer and an HP Lightscribe CD writer.  I am working on an extension of Bette’s work on my own line (descendants of Sobriety Bunker).  This will be an update of a report printed when I first got involved with the BFA, and my family tree data base extends and corrects some of the work on the Devon CD (errors in the data base were the result of an incorrect link; my great-grandfather was an illegitimate child and the discovery of the incorrect link wasn’t made until the Devon CDs were under production).  No matter, all genealogy is a work in progress, and the same will be true when my CD version of the Descendants of Sobriety Bunker is completed in a few months (hopefully this summer).

As soon as that work is completed, I will turn my efforts to making PDF versions of all back issues of the Bunker Banner, which will likely fit on a single CD.  If that can be accomplished, BFA President Gil Bunker will have less paper stored.  Pricing for the CD has not been determined at this time.

As always, any suggestions may be sent to me via e-mail.

You are cordially invited to celebrate The Bunker Family Association’s 98th anniversary June 15-19 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. BFA President Gil Bunker, in an article in the upcoming Banner (newsletter published for members of the BFA) says there are interesting tours scheduled for two of three days. The reunion host location will be at the Hampton Inn Center City.  On Thursday, June 16 you will see first hand what America’s richest man, in 1831, did with his millions. The story of Stephen Girard’s humanitarianism and philanthropy is awe-inspiring. Milton Hershey was so impressed with Girard’s philosophy he was inspired to create his own school. Inadvertently Father Flanagan’s Boys Town grew from an imperative need to shelter just a few orphans nearly 70 years after Girard College opened its doors.

The early Friday excursion will wind through center city; you’ll see historic Philadelphia and visit some of her 3,000 huge works of art. It’s a tour unique only to the “City of Brotherly Love.” Afterwards you can gain a great insider’s look of Philadelphia’s Chinatown during the afternoon jaunt; a clever initiative by a noted chef.

The Annabelle Moore Scholarship is awarded annually to a graduating senior or college freshman who is the child or grandchild of a BFA member in good stand. Good luck to all the entrants.

Don’t forget your entry for the “neck-tie” party and a limerick to add a touch of gaiety during the business meeting. Under “new business,” your suggestions will be solicited for a 100th birthday slogan, motto, saying or jingle to help advertise our first century. Send Gil your ideas even if you won’t be in Philly. A prize for the winning selection.

The annual raffle is always an exciting conclusion to our festivities, made particularly eventful by your generous donations. You are invited to participate even if unable to Celebrate Ninety-eight. Your kindness is sincerely anticipated and appreciated by all.

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The 99th BFA reunion is planned for Salt Lake City, Utah; and the centennial celebration (the BFA’s 100th) will be held in Boston, Massachusetts (tentatively June 13-20, 2013), with events planned for the Bunker garrison graveyard in Durham, New Hampshire, participating in Charlestown’s Bunker Hill parade  and the 238th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill.  While the Bunker Family Association’s golden anniversary is still two-years distant, it’s never too late to become a committee volunteer. The week-long festivities will require a team effort, except for the tug-of-war with the Breed family. We  hear Allen Breed hopes to impress some Bunkers to hold his end of the rope.

Duncan Stewart passed along photos from the May 2010 Bunker Reunion, which was timed to coincide with the 200th year celebrations of Bunker’s Cottage at the Collingwood Estate in Australia. Duncan and other organizers aimed to have a daylong event with the largest gathering of Bunker descendants in the Southern Hemisphere. From the photos they look like they succeeded.

PLEASE NOTE:

The Bunker Family Association’s shared photo gallery has been moved to a new web address due to a change in ownership of the previous site. The new address for the photo gallery is:

https://douglasdetling.smugmug.com/BFA.

Although in the future visitors may not be required to enter a password or register, for the time being visitors will need this password to enter the BFA’s photo gallery: CND_BunkY!

Earlier this year, Mary Bunker Peterson undertook some extensive maintenance in the Bunker Graveyard in Durham, New Hampshire.  This past week, Paula Mae Deprey spent some time documenting the location of the individual gravestones in this historic cemetery.  Her photographs are available in a photo album maintained by BFA webmaster Doug Detling at http://greencity.phanfare.com/4830622.   Paula also prepared two guides for those who may have relatives in the graveyard.  These are a sketch of the layout of the graveyard, and a description of what is engraved on the stones, with as much detail as can be read; the documents also contain driving directions to the site.  The BFA thanks Paula for sharing this information about the graveyard even though she is not related to those buried there.

Sketch of the graveyard

Directions and details on the gravestones

Bette Bunker Richards shared the following comment with Paula as part of her preparation for the visit:

A bit of explanation about there being no markers.  Markers were rarely put on graves in the 1600 and 1700s.  In addition, you needed a stone carver available who could actually carve the stone and many communities did not have any.  And then, Quakers did not mark graves and many of the early Bunkers were Quakers.  Sometimes, a big rock was put on top the grave and sometimes it might have an initial or two carved in it but for people with no experience carving stone this was difficult and usually not deep enough to last for very long.

At long last, I can post again… After a hard disk crash due to a power failure, I decided a couple of weeks ago to upgrade my family house network to devolve my old (but still relatively new) computer to the grandkids who live with us.  Isabel and Manuel are both in school, but love to get on the Disney web site on their mother’s laptop as soon as they can. So, we’re dedicating one machine for their use, and grandpa gets a new PC.  I’ve got the system running, and have reinstalled most of the software…though I still have some to go.  But it’s back to my many projects which I steadily work on…a little at a time but try to progress each week.

• I’ve updated my personal family history software to Family Tree Maker 2011, and am now checking entries for the descendants of Elizabeth Williams, daughter of my 5th-great-grandmother Sobriety Bunker Williams.  It is only Elizabeth’s descendants I have to update and I’ll be ready to do a new CD version of my 1996 work, Descendants of Sobriety Bunker, which was produced in print form for the Bunker Family Association. I hope to have the new CD available by Christmas, adding to the two CDs compiled by Bette Bunker Richards.  Those CDs continue to be available for purchase.   The Sobriety Bunker CD will extend the information on Sobriety Bunker’s family, some of which is contained on Bette’s first, tracing the Devon Bunkers.

• Bette’s data bases are maintained in The Master Genealogist, which I also use. So Bette asked that I install a backup of the BFA data bases on my network.  As major updates to those occur,  we will continue to maintain remote backups.

• Reinstalling a scanner this weekend will allow me to continue working on another CD publication, which will be an electronic version of the back issues of the Bunker Banner, the newsletter of the Bunker Family Association. The Association was founded in 1913, but the Banner was first published in 1971. BFA members Ruth Bunker Christensen, Edward F. Cooper, and Gil and Carole Bunker were editors in the first 25 years of the Banner’s history. Gil and Carole continued to share the production duties of the Banner thereafter until Carol’s death in 2009, and Gil has continued with the Banner editorial duties in addition to his role as BFA President.  Hopefully the production of this CD will allow Gill to clean out some paper copies of older Banner issues.

Please continue to use the Bunker e-mail list at Rootsweb as it is the easiest way to exchange and obtain information.  If you are interested in subscribing but don’t know how, instructions are on the e-mail page on this blog. Or you can send an e-mail to me:  doug.detling@gmail.com.

Photographs on the Bunker Family Association photo site have shown the general area of the Bunker graveyard in Durham, New Hampshire.  Several years ago, BFA President Gil Bunker prepared a chart of the graves, outlining what is known about individual burials, and also speculating about others.  The chart has been converted to a PDF file, and may be downloaded here.  You will need Adobe Acrobat or some other software to permit viewing the file.

Bunker graveyard [PDF]